November 21, 2016: Chris Wood Talks About Playing Mon-El on “Supergirl”

In an extensive interview with EmpireOnline.com, actor Chris Wood talks about his career, his role on “Supergirl”, and where his character of Mon-El is headed.

Here’s part of the interview…

As far as Mon-El is concerned, though, how would you describe his journey this year on Supergirl?

We’re just starting episode eleven, so we’re not even at the mid point yet, which is crazy to even think that. We don’t have to pretend like he’s not on the hero’s journey, though. Will he or won’t he be a superhero? He’s based on a comic book character who’s a superhero and I think we’ve had enough scenes where we’ve seen that, so I’m not going to try to hide that. We know where it’s going. Everybody knows that it’s moving towards a suit eventually. What it’s going to look like, who knows? That is his story. He’s finding the part of him that’s based on who he was on Daxam, and part of that is the bias that you see come out with he and Kara when they have their differences and they resent aspects of each other because of where they’re from. She actually struggles with it more than he does, which I think is a brilliant thing, to bring more of a human quality to her so that she’s not just perfect.

So she’s got biases, too. She works through them quickly, which is nice. He’s got a lot of stuff from his background, and he’s new to this planet. The rules are different. When he was there, it seemed like he was just living his life for himself, based on what he’s told her so far. He hasn’t been completely honest about everything. I can give you that. He has left some details out that she’ll find out soon that will obviously change their dynamic. He was a bit of a dude back home. He’s now here, and we’re starting to see him respond to someone who’s trying to actually help him and make him better. At first he’s resisting it, because he doesn’t feel the same impulse to go save the world that she does. So, his story’s going to become one of how does he gain that need? Where does that come from? It’s something with the Clark Kent story that you don’t really get, because he was already there when we met him. There’s got to be a moment like the one in the pilot for Kara when she’s, like, “I have to do this.” He’s going to have one of those moments at some point, where he is self-motivated to pursue this as a purpose.

At first, everyone’s trying to tell him to do it and he’s like, “Yeah, I should do it. That’s great.” Then, eventually, it becomes, “I want to do this. Oh, I’m still screwing this part up, okay, but I want to do this, and I want to do it fully.” That’s his evolution, and then hopefully get him to a place where … well, it’s further down in the season. He’s going to be put in a very difficult position where he has to make some massive life decisions on who he’s going to be and who he wants to be. Does he want to be who he was, or does he want to become something bigger and better? That story gets pretty big as we move forward.

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December 1: Richard Pryor, Gus Gorman in Superman III, born in Peoria, Illinois in 1940.
December 1: Joanne Siegel, wife of Jerry Siegel and the original model for Lois Lane, born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1917.
December 8: Teri Hatcher, Lois Lane on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, born in 1964.
December 8: David Harewood, Hank Henshaw in the 2015 Supergirl TV series, born in Small Heath, Birmingham, England in 1965.
December 10: Richard Pryor, Gus Gorman in Superman III, dies of a heart attack in Encino, Los Angeles, California in 2005.
December 12: Sarah Douglas, Ursa in Superman: The Movie and Superman II, born in 1952.
December 14: Peter O'Toole, who played the role of Zaltar in 1984's Supergirl movie, dies in 2013, aged 81.
December 15: Artist Kurt Shaffenberger (Lois Lane, Superboy) born in 1920.
December 15: Helen Slater, star of the 1984Supergirl movie, born in Bethpage, New York in 1963.
December 29: John Haymes Newton, star of the 1st season of the Superboy TV series, born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1965.
December 30: Kristin Kreuk, Lana Lang on Smallville, born in Vancouver, B.C, Canada in 1982.